Malware, or malicious software, are programs and software which attempt to download itself onto your computer to potentially harm your computer, access your information, or perform harmful operations without your consent.
Malware can be downloaded onto a user's site through various means, such as search toolbars, game demos, music players, free subscriptions and other downloadable programs from the web.
Malware is closely related to viruses, however it includes larger potential for issues.
This might include Trojan horses, worms, root kits, various adware and spyware.
Once downloaded, malware may report your personal information to distant servers, hijack your web browser and redirect you to advertising/phishing pages, send you targeted email, log your keystrokes, observe your browsing choices, steal your passwords, or spawn pop-up windows.
Be careful with malware as it attempts to trick the user through one common method: disguising itself as an anti-virus program.
In doing this, the malware appears automatically in attempt to run a scan of your computer.
Once it runs, it "finds" other viruses on your computer in numerous places.
The malware then attempts to persuade you to purchase their anti-virus program in order to rid your computer of these potential dangers by continuously scanning your computer (even if you cancel the scanning operation) and stating that the only way to remove these "viruses" is by purchasing their product, and in effect you losing money and adding more malware to your computer.
The main disadvantage of malware is that it can operate in your system unnoticed.
It can also disable many of your system features that can help to stop the malware processes (such as task manager).
Furthermore, malware continues to not uninstall properly, it is designed to be undetected by legitimate anti-virus programs, and malware usually requires special programs and operations to delete them completely.
No PC user is safe from malware because of their function to be secretly downloaded.
Please follow these steps to prevent malware from being downloaded into your computer system: Pay attention to how your computer is operating.
Unexpected activity or sudden slowness of your system can be a sign of malware presence.
Set your Internet browser to highest security, so it will notify you when any program attempts to download.
Do not download programs or software from untrustworthy web sites.
These programs often seem to be innocent, but they may contain malware that will be installed on your computer.
Always read the fine print when downloading anything from the web.
The end-user licenses might seem boring, but there can be useful information in them, such as you giving permission to a company to place various forms of malware on your computer.